New Flowers and Ana Forrest

Ok, so flowers and Ana Forrest are not necessarily related, but I wanted to discuss both topics in one entry. So there ya go.

Alright, so for years I have been wearing flower barrettes in my hair. Many people have commented on them... "those are so cute! Where did you get them?" I have made most of them... so I finally decided to make a big ol' batch and now they are finally for sale on my etsy page.

OK, Ana Forrest. She is an incredible yogini, teacher trainer, and generally amazing woman. She's doing a teacher training in Boston at the moment, which I am not a part of, but I am attending 8 of her morning intensives at Back Bay Yoga. They start at 7AM and last two hours, and they are most definitely intense. She is all about power, healing, and strength... so having that be at the forefront of my brain for two hours is almost a bit emotionally exhausting. Oh yes and she happens to be the arm-balance queen.

I must admit that I was first a bit frightened to take her workshops. I have heard that she can be a bit on the hard-ass side, but I realize that she does it out of love. Ana has a great sense of humor, she does make little mistakes, she is human, and she is a powerhouse of incredible energy. Here's an amazing yoga demo of her at a Yoga Journal conference.

I have six more intensives to attend and I am highly looking forward to the rest of them...

Rachel is, indeed, a yoga teacher.

So I don't think I have mentioned yoga once in this entire blog. Oops.

Last April I started a teacher-training program, Yoga of Energy Flow Training (200-hours) with Daniel Orlansky, Aaron Cantor, and Carrie Tyler. I had been studying yoga with Aaron at Yoga in the Square (Davis Square, Somerville) since August 2007, and he told me about this training he was doing. Without giving it much thought I enrolled and fell in love with it immediately.

OK, that was a while ago. In October I got a gig teaching yoga to the men's basketball team at Brandeis University. Mind you, I had only taught yoga privately with a friend one-on-one; never a whole class. Especially a bunch of dudes! So here I am at 7AM on a Monday morning with a room full of very tall and athletic men... and I totally kicked their butts. It was way fun. Since then I got another gig teaching Brandeis women's volleyball team, men's/women's tennis, and I also do a weekly yoga class with the staff of the Athletic Department at Brandeis. In addition to the Brandeis stuff I have also subbed at Yoga in the Square... I hope to get my own class soon. OH YES and I also just finished a mini 12-hour training with Alice Senko. It's a "hot hatha" training which is basically the Bikram series minus the bull shit. I did the training so that I can teach/sub for those classes at Yoga in the Square. It's a very different style of yoga than I am used to doing, but I still like it a lot. It's done in a heated room... series of 26 postures.... twice on each side...good stuff.

Anyway no deep thoughts or musings in this post... not that there ever are... but I thought I'd share...

OH yes and I updated my website, finally, with a little bit of yoga info.